"If he jumps up and kicks you in the stomach, it is probably NOT SANTA, you dink!"

Hurry! Hurry! If you don't pick it up and move your ass, we're going to miss Kunzite-sama fucking Zoisite-sama!

... Oh, holy mother of krap -- are you joking? Are you stupid? Yes, it's important! Don't you know what today is, you ignorant bitch? Today's Opening o' the Kingdom, and if we don't watch the Rites, we go blind!

... Idiot. Now drop those tools and let's move.

-- Well, no, last year it was Kunzite-sama fucking Jadeite-sama, and the year before that, it was Nephrite-sama with Zoisite-sama, but that was just a big mistake all around, really. I dunno who the fuck was in charge of that one, but you can bet that Kunzite-sama wasn't feeling too civil for a few days afterwards; he sulked like hell for bein' passed over as Opener of the Ways. Loves his piacular fucking, does the King o' the Cold Spaces.

... Do you really know nothing? Where the hell were you hatched, anyway? -- Oh, Jigoku-kado. Explains a lot; the folk o' the Gates are a bunch of ignorant wretches, no offense. I mean, really, they're a fucking waste of resources, and --

All right, honey, you can either put that knife away and we can keep running to the Vastness, or I can kick your ass while sprinting and you'll be saved the trouble of going blind because you won't need to see nothing. -- Good girl. Sorry I insulted your frigging little village. Now pick up the pace; don't you know that the last one into the Vastness provides the lubricant for the Rites?

-- Well, back in the days when it was the Great Lord Endymion fucking Beryl-hime, there wasn't a sacrifice to open the thing up, because, well, Beryl- hime didn't need lubricant; she juiced herself up okay. You're a girl, we're all girls here, we know how that works. But the Kings -- now that Beryl-hime's lost the Great Lord and we've only got the Kings for the Rites, we've gotta have a bowl of slick stuff ready. Mighty and great are the Kings, sugar, but not among their many arcane powers is havin' a naturally well-greased ass. It's a damn lucky thing that youma blood takes a long time to coagulate, now innit?

Hold on, hold on -- I can't run all that fast while I'm snickering; yer wind comes from the depth o' yer belly, you know. There. There. Okay, now repeat - - did you really just ask me what the Rites are for?

Do they teach you anything in Jigoku-kado? I mean honestly. Even those maggots we get from the D-point are better informed than you. It's one of the things that unites the Kingdom, the Rites! C'mon, bitch, you've honestly never heard of the Opening of the Kingdom?

Fuck. I mean -- fuck. How the hell have you survived as long as you have? Do you just not pay attention to that fuck-all huge ceremony we have at the end of every year? I repeat, are you stupid?

Are you joking?

Okay. We've got that straight; you're not stupid, you're not joking, you're just some bitch from the outskirts of nowhere who ain't got jack shit idea of how this place runs. Okay. I can work with that. Sounds like you come from King Nephrite's tribes, then, eh?

No, we can't sit down while I tell you this story. We're gonna be cutting it close already, and between you and me, while Kunzite-sama likes havin' a swell orderly like me, he ain't gonna brave the displeasure of Her Nibs the Dark Goddess Metallia by steppin' in to save me from the sacrifice. It ain't how this place works.

Aw, cheer up, honey; it'll take our minds off how fast we're running. Serves us right for being out here in the Back of Beyond when we knew that the Rites were upon us, eh?

Scratch that; when one of us knew that the Rites were upon us.

Okay, hon, quit snuffling into my goddam ear, and we'll pass the time between here and the Vastness.

The Queen of the Dark Kingdom is the High Priestess of the Dark Goddess, the Beloved of Metallia, the Jewel of Midnight, the Queen of Air and Darkness, the Queen Under the Empty Throne. We know that. It gets drilled right into our brains when we're still grubs -- speaking for you maggots, naturally; I started my life as a human peasant in a lovely li'l place just outside of Shambhalla in Asia Province.

Anyway, we know that Beryl-hime is the queen because she's the high priestess; our Dark Goddess cherishes her, and that's why we youma could kick the asses of anyone else in the universe. Our queen's got an ArchDemon in her back pocket, so you can see as how the Dark Kingdom could conceivably overrun the entire damn universe if we felt like it. -- Don't even start about the seals over D-point. I don't wanna hear about it; I hear enough from Kunzite- sama after he's Had Words with the spellbreakers. Damn that Serenity bitch, anyway.

And you know the primary thing about peoples beloved of the gods, right?

No, you ignorant slut. Just keep your mouth shut and leave the thinking and the answering of rhetorical questions to the people who are good at it, okay?

The first requirement of us is that we be a separate nation.

Done and done, you say.

We're sealed beyond the reach of any humans, forever, you say.

(What do you mean, you never said anything like that? Will you shut the hell up and accept that you're gonna say whatever I need you to say to make the damn story flow?)

Ahem.

We're sealed beyond the reach of any humans, forever, you say.

We, the youma sworn to the Four, the One, and the Empty One, are alone and defiant forever, you say.

True as hell, sugar, I say, but do you know why we're alone, why we're sealed away, why we stand alone and defiant? You know why that particular bit of smoke-screening bullshit got started up?

Nope. You don't. You're pretty enough for one of the northern tribes, I guess, but you do resemble some sort of drooling idiot when your eyes go all blank like that. I mention this purely out of sisterly love between fellow youma, and all that shit.

I'll tell you why we're alone, why we go around nattering that we're a special nation and can't go around associating with other races or places.

Fucking poor planning on the parts of Their Nibs.

Kunzite-sama, you see, wanted to keep a hole in the Aegis.

Nephrite-sama wanted to keep a hole in the Aegis.

Zoisite-sama wanted to keep a hole in the Aegis.

Jadeite-sama... didn't really care one way or the other, but he said that he wanted to keep a hole in the Aegis, if only so's Kunzite-sama wouldn't kick his ass.

This is nice. This is logic. -- Don't interrupt; I'll explain logic later. -- If we'd kept even a small break in the slick smooth iciness of Metallia's Aegis when the Kingdom was sealed away, back when the war was going on, then we'd be able to venture out of the Kingdom.

Don't fucking try my patience; what's out of the Kingdom that we might want?

... Oh, I don't know ...

Stars, for Nephrite-sama's astromancy...

Animals, so we don't have to eat slugs.... (To tell the truth, sugar, so you lot won't have to eat slugs -- what, you think that I eat the same gunk as the rest of you maggots? Right.)

And maybe, just maybe, some humans so we can feed the Dark Goddess's hunger without having to slaughter a tribe or two every week.

Hmm? It make sense now, sugar?

Right. I thought so.

So, why the Aegis?

It was orginally intended to keep people out of the Kingdom, which it does. The thing is, it also keeps us in.

Yeah, I know. Makes no frigging sense, now does it?

It's all the fault of that bitch Serenity. It really is. She had to go and snag away the Great Lord Endymion from Beryl-hime, and that was the start of it all. Endymion, y'see, was the Beloved of Amaterasu, and so long as the might of the Imperial Goddess was twinned with that of the Dark Goddess, we had the Kingdom flowering. We had everything we wanted. We had light and air and stars and --

Well, let's just say that, as long as Beryl-hime got regularly fucked, we had lots fewer random decimations in the ranks.

But then the white bitch Serenity stepped in and yoinked Endymion away. When she did, as soon as Endymion set foot outside the Kingdom, everything.... died.

Kunzite-sama argued -- hard -- for Beryl to leave the borders open. He tried damn near everything he could think of, to keep her from calling on the Empty Throne to grant her a boon. He even gritted his teeth and went to her bed to see if he could change her mind that way.

You just know that if Zoisite can screw up his will and endure sharing Kunzite-sama with even the queen, this is something fucking important.

It didn't work, naturally. Serenity and Endymion raised an army -- oh, you know that part? Glad as all hell to see that you know something, sugar. Was beginning to think that your mama must've fucked one of the slugs to produce something as dim as you.

Right. The first thing that happened in the war was that Beryl-hime called upon the Dark Goddess and Metallia sealed us all away, sealed us away forever. Snap. Just like that.

Okay. Fine. So, if Beryl asked again, Metallia could take it down, right?

No dice, no soap, no enchilada.

The Great Lord Endymion, the Beloved of Amaterasu, called upon his Goddess, and the Bright One wove an Aegis of Her own, interwoven with the Dark Aegis inextricably.

-- We're almost there. Run faster; I see some slowpokes, but they're catching up.

So, we had a barrier to keep Serenity and her Senshi- bitches out, but they also had a barrier to keep us in. We've never broken through. Never. Not since the days of the war.

But we want out. Oh, hell, do we ever want out. There's food. There's light. There's the stars. Honey, if you've never seen the stars, you don't know what you're missing. Even me, who has about as much astromancy in me as Nephrite-sama's got red blood in him, can admit that the stars are what I miss most from the days before the Aegis.

And so we've got the Opening of the Kingdom, every year.

Metallia's not a fertility deity, nuh-uh, but I tell you the truth -- all religion basically boils down to fucking, sooner or later, even if only in the negative. When Endymion-sama and Beryl-hime ruled jointly, as Bright and Dark regents of the Goddesses, they consummated their union every year in the same Vastness, going at it in front of all their subjects in the Names of Amaterasu and Metallia. It pleased the Goddesses. I dunno if They drew power from it, or if They fed from the worship of the gathered youma, or if They're just holy voyeurs, but the Rites pleased Them.

We remembered that. Kunzite-sama remembered that.

And, in the days just after the borders were sealed, when we first realized that Metallia's essences were once again interwoven with those of Amaterasu -- only this time, not as allies -- Kunzite-sama called together all the youma of the kingdom -- the Red tribes belonging to King Jadeite, the Blue of Nephrite, the Green of Zoisite, the White of Kunzite, and the Seven Shadows belonging to the Goddess Herself.

We stood gathered in the Vastness, all of us at once, and watched, with the memories of the old days stirring in us, as Kunzite-sama drained the blood and fluids from a chieftain of the White tribes, caught them in a silver bowl, and offered them to the High Priestess, Beryl-hime. The queen, the dark queen, took the bowl, passed her fine white hands over the contents, consecrated them to Metallia.

In the Name of the Empty Goddess, the Dark One, the ArchDemon Who cares for us, he pleaded with Her to take down the Aegis, to let us free, in order to take vengeance.

And, to please the Dark Goddess, Kunzite-sama took the blood and other vitalnesses from the youma, and used 'em to fuck Zoisite-sama up the ass.

Gods are such weird creatures.

Every year, every Opening of the Kingdom, a pair chosen by Metallia from among the Shitennou perform their sacrifice and then one buggers the other. It's ritual. We witness it, to make it so; Beryl-hime prays before and during the Rites, to make it so; all of us cry out to the Empty Goddess, to make it so.

Hot damn, we want to be free...

-- Honey, I'm really not kidding, we're going to be last...

Fuck. Look, this pains me, dear, but we're at the door of the Vastness, we're the last two, and I quite frankly don't want my millennia-old blood easing Kunzite-sama's cock along Zoisite's back door, so -- don't take this personally --

...

...

...

Funny. She'd grown on me. Still, there's no way I'm going to miss the Opening of the Ways for some little maggot from some little maggot-town under D- point. She'd get killed in a few years anyway, as soon as the spellbreakers finish their hammering at Amaterasu's weakness, as soon as Metallia's finally been sated by the holy buggering done in Her Name.

And in the meantime, there's always the look on Nephrite-sama's face as he watches Zoisite sit on Kunzite-sama. I wouldn't miss that for all the stars in the galaxy.

May the Kingdom Open... but not this year.